Tata Coffee may take the China route to Africa

TNNFeb 26, 2007, 04.02am IST

BANGALORE: Tata Coffee is looking at expanding its international footprint once again. It will commence work soon on setting up a 3,600-tonne soluble coffee plant in Uganda at a cost of Rs 70 crore, said MH Ashraff, the company's managing director.

"We should be visiting Uganda shortly to finalise vendors and the location of the factory which would come up in 18 months time," he added.

Besides investing in the factory, Tata Coffee has also plans to partner the government of Uganda in pushing soluble coffee into China. Mr Ashraff said that government of Uganda had an instant coffee brand Crane (which was being sold in China) though currently the distribution was being handled by a local agent in the Middle Kingdom. Thanks to rising income levels and a young population, coffee consumption has been on the rise in China, a market traditionally known as a tea-drinker's paradise.

Tata Coffee would also target markets like Russia/CIS and Ukraine with its freeze-dried coffee. The freeze-dried coffee would be produced at the 2,500 tonne facility at Theni(Tamilnadu). "These markets (Russia/CIS) are seeing a rise in consumption of freeze-dried coffee, though typically, the market continues to be dominated by spray-dried coffee which is witnessing declining growth. We are keen to tap into the freeze-dried market," he said.

The freeze-dried coffee is more costlier than conventional spray-dried coffee. Currently, Tata Coffee has licensed two of its brands — Mysore Gold and Tata International Cafe besides producing coffee for private Russian labels. He said that Tata Coffee,

which had launched the "Mr Bean Junction" retail outlet in Kochi, was looking at expanding and planned to have another five more outlets operational.